A new swimming pool and recreation centre in Fort St. John could cost as much as $185 million.

That’s the preliminary price being presented to city council in a project update on Monday.

Coun. Trevor Bolin says he feels there is public support for a new pool, but expressed that transparency helps put residents at ease with the costs and process.

“Nobody likes being surprised. Nobody likes being told, ‘Hey, we’re going to spend $185 million on this and this is it,'” he said.

“We’ve really spent a lot of time designing this and planning this for what our community has requested.”

Bolin says the cost is $95 million less than the original numbers floated for the new facility, which also includes an indoor soccer field.

If the project moves ahead, it would replace the city’s aging pool, opened in 1996, and its fieldhouse, which was converted from an arena in 2011.

Three separate funding scenarios are listed in a council agenda package, with options to borrow between $60 million and $90 million.

“Those funding models are put forward to be fully transparent to our residents. We don’t know exactly where we’re going to wind up. We know it’s $185 million,” Bolin said.

“With a 20 per cent contingency, we felt very comfortable bringing that number to the public.”

The remaining costs would be offset by budget reserves, federal and provincial grants, and partnerships with industry and First Nations.

“We don’t want to see a model roll out where it’s all borrowing and it’s all on the backs of the taxpayer,” said Bolin.

Across the three scenarios listed in the council agenda package, the monthly residential tax increase would range from just over $17 to nearly $27.

Bolin says it’s important to keep that increase at a level residents can live with, noting many expressed being comfortable with an increase of $30 to $40.

The council package also has concept renderings of the new pool, but Bolin says they aren’t true to life, but give more of a general idea of what the facility might look like.

A referendum is planned for October that asks residents whether they want to borrow to help pay for the project.

Bolin says the question will be simplified by then.

“If we were to hold the referendum today, it would be similar to the amounts you see in those three examples. Are you willing for the city to borrow $60-90 million?”

“As we get closer and we start to figure out what grants we have and where additional funding models fit into place, the question will be very simple and around the fact of, are you willing to borrow ‘X’ amount of dollars?”

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